Revile
by Mikozume
Summary: With another grunt you drag yourself up to the very top, where a gaping hold separates this side from the other. You always listened to the stories, always listened to your friend's parents telling you to stay away from Mount Ebott. Down there, down in that hole far below your neighborhood, was a dangerous, horrible place, right? You jump all the way down and don't look back.


You don't like the shouts. They're loud, they consume you and make you quake where you stand. Sometimes they stop, sometimes silence envelops you. The silence is beautiful. Sometimes a door will creak and you'll jump, sometimes you'll hear a clatter or a crash, but it's always better than the yelling.

Sometimes they yell at each other. Sometimes it's about taxes, sometimes it's about the house, sometimes it's about something stupid. Today they yell about work. Your mother isn't working enough hours, your father yells. Your father is using all the money on himself anyway, shrieks your mother.

 _I'd work as many hours as I was allowed if I could get a job,_ you tell yourself. Nobody comments on your input and you shift where you lie on your bed. Your sheets haven't been washed in a long time; a patch of blood still stains them. Your mother would turn the yells to you if you suggested a wash, though. If you went out of your room to wash them yourself, well, it'd be calling attention to yourself. You'd rather not do that.

It turns out it was pointless to try and hide, though, because your door bangs open anyways and you're hauled to your feet. You got a C on a math test. Your mother's angry. You grunt as a hand collides with your chest, which just earns you another hit that makes you stumble.

"Get the hell up," your mother snaps, grabbing your wrist and demanding that you study. "God, Frisk, people are going to think you're retarded if you keep these grades up. Maybe if you skip dinner tonight for some extra study time you'll do better when you make it up!" You nod, keeping your mouth shut tightly. She leaves your room and the yelling resumes again. You aren't hungry, so you aren't remorseful at the loss of your dinner privileges. You're just sick of being in this house.

You drag yourself off the ground and back onto your bed. You fish a Band-Aid out from the inside of your pillowcase. "Just a little bruise, Frisk!" You assure yourself softly, a hiccup interrupting your sentence. "You'll be okay," a tear makes its way onto your cheek as you whisper, all the same. No one else was going to comfort you, though.

When the yelling stops it's late at night. The moon is high and it's cold out. If you had a coat to pull on over your shirt you would do just that—you don't have a jacket, though, so you just pull open your window and tug a bandanna over your head to cover your ears at the very least. Your sneakers leave little scuffs on your windowsill that you'll have to remember to clean off when you get back.

You shiver a little, wrapping your arms around yourself as you walk away from your house. Everyone in your neighborhood is asleep and the night is eerily silent. That's fine. You like the quiet, don't you? _Why aren't you asleep, too, Frisk?_ You imagine someone's fussing over you.

"Because I couldn't sleep. I'm just going for a little walk," you reassured someone that you'd made up in your mind.

 _If you go out in this weather without a coat you'll catch a cold!_

"I'll be fine!" You chirp, taking long strides down the path you've made for yourself through the woods. "No one ever caught a sickness from just being in the cold!"

Your smile slips when your footsteps are the only ones you hear. You force it back on, clambering over a bush and pushing aside a tangle of leaves that blocks the way to your destination.

Mount Ebott is tall. It's not truly a mountain, of course, but it does make a rather large hill. You've heard all the stories about it. You always cling to each word when the fables are exchanged. They may not be true, but you rather like the thought of the mountain being magical. If that spot was _really_ the place that sealed the monsters underground, wouldn't it be heavily guarded or something? You've met enough adults to know that people got full of themselves with age, though. They probably thought that they were too smart to be outwitted by monsters.

You take a step towards the grass at the base of the giant mound of rock. You make it up several more steps before you trip and end up back at the base with two bloody knees and damaged dignity.

This time you hold onto the bits of rock that jut out and make your way back up, huffing with the effort of climbing the whole way up.

 _Sometimes people climb Mount Ebott and never come back._

You'd like to climb this whole mountain and end up someplace that you'll never have to come back from. Maybe on the other side there's a place that's so nice people never go home. You'd like to end up there. You'd like to jump down that hole to where the monsters were, you'd be fine with being trapped there with all of them. You could explore the entire underground. You wouldn't ever have to go home again. You'd never have to retake that test. You'd never get yelled at again, no one would hit you ever again.

 _That's where the monsters are trapped, under there. They've been there for so long; they'll never find their way out, though!_

You'd like to find your way in. You might even fit in with them, the monsters. You like to imagine the monsters how they are in your books, misunderstood and polite. You like to think they're friendly. You'd like to meet them someday.

 _One of them made it out, once. With a dead human in his arms, too! The mayor's son, of all people. They're dangerous, nasty beasts…_

Maybe the mayor's son shouldn't have been stupid, then. He'd probably gotten what he'd earned. It was probably just a story, anyway. Did the old mayor ever even have a son? You couldn't remember.

With another grunt you drug yourself up to the very top, where a gaping hold separated this side from the other. As you stand here on the top you feel your bandanna get stuck on one of the branches in the tree. With an agitated sigh you leave it. You don't need it, you've got plenty others. You'd always listened to the stories, to your friend's parents telling you to stay away from Mount Ebott. Down there, down in that hole far below your neighborhood, were nasty horrible monsters that showed up with dead humans in their arms. Cruel creatures, monsters. Would you rather stay up here with all these humans, though? As if they were any better. Worst case scenario you'd get another smattering of bruises and a cool life that you'd forge for yourself underground. You step forward. You fall all the way down.

Your shriek is deafening—at least, to you, in this small echo-y place as the wind blows your shirt into your face. What were you thinking?! What were you _doing?!_ You were going to _die!_

You were stupid, caught up in your stupid little stories. So enraptured that you'd thought that if you'd dropped yourself off into a mountain you'd land just fine in a lovely world filled with friendly monsters. God, your mom was right, you really were just retarded!

You land and you tumble, rolling a little ways a sucking in a breath. Sitting up, you wince. A quick check verifies that you aren't dead, but that you do have some more scrapes on your legs and bruises running up and down your arms. You tug your pant legs down further and stand up. Flowers—you were on a bed of flowers. That had to mean that things lived down here to take care of them, right? You couldn't help but allow a little flood of childish excitement to flood through you. You allowed it to stay there, too, because goddammit you _were_ a child, even if your mother liked to pretend you weren't. You swipe some dust off your sweater, standing up and wandering through the cavern until you found a door.

You didn't intend to ever go back up.

"I want to stay with you," you tell her firmly. You'd almost shrugged and given her an 'I've got things to do,' before you'd stopped yourself. _Things to do? Like what—go home? Ha! As if! 'Home.'_

You're a little bit bitter; of course you're a little bit bitter. But it's a bitter-sweetness when you remember that you don't have to be bitter, not anymore. Because in front of you? That's Toriel, who rubs your head and your back and puts Band-Aids on your wounds for you. The first time she'd done that, you'd started bawling. She'd wrapped you up in a hug, shushing you and comforting you. Of course, she'd thought you'd been tearing up over the scrape, but you hadn't corrected her.

And down that path, down that slope, lies the other side of the mountain. On the other side of the mountain is a neighborhood with a house where a couple may have been wondering about their lost child. There was a school where a retake of a math test lay untouched. But on this side? There was Sans, at the bottom of the other path, sprawled in the grass and enjoying the sun. There was Papyrus, who was shouting self-proclamations to an empty field. Alphys and Undyne waited there, at the bottom of the slope. Undyne hissed shushes to Papyrus, Alphys giggled, Toriel started down the path and you stayed where you were. Tears filled your eyes for a moment before you rubbed them away hurriedly.

"Frisk? Frisk, come along, dear. It's awfully chilly at the top up here and I'd rather you didn't get a cold."

You breathe in a sharp intake of breath and nod, casting one more glance to the top of Mount Ebott, where there, in the grass, lay a single red bandanna still flapping in the tree where it was stuck.

 _Some people climbed Mount Ebott and never came back. They found their way down to the castle, where their souls were stolen to help soothe the fears of the king of the monsters and to help to soothe his fear. There were monsters trapped down there, they were trapped down there for so long that they all just ached to see the stars. They found their way out, though. Once a boy fell down the hole. When it was nearly his time to die, a monster brought his body up to his world, where he died. The humans misunderstood. Cruel beasts, humans. They aren't humane at all, trapping and killing monsters without a second thought. Some monsters, of course, are mean… but most of them? They're friendly._

"I'm here to join the Royal Guard of the humans! I will rank top-class! Monsters and humans alike will listen to me for I am the _Great_ Papyrus!"

You snort, joining Sans wordlessly in the grass.

"What's on the other side, kid?" Your head shifts over to him. You aren't sure how he does it, but his eyes (eye sockets?) are shut. He looks like he's about to take a nap, here and now. You shrug, even though he can't see it.

"Houses, a school, humans…there's a restaurant you might like." He snorts, not adding on anything more. You sit in silence for so long you're sure Sans is asleep. You cast a glance over to where everyone else was, all still occupied by Pap's yelling and the sun that grew redder as it set. You wondered what they'd think of the stars when the sun finished setting.

You open your mouth to say something else, even if he isn't awake, if only just to break the silence that had pulled itself over the two of you. You haven't got anything else to say, though, so you just stay silent and close your mouth again. You shut your own eyes and take a nap with Sans instead.

You don't think you'll be stopping by to say hello anytime soon. There's no one there to say hello to, anyway.


End file.
